The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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[_The_ DOGE _throws himself upon his knees, and as
the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes._

SCENE IV.--_The Piazza and Piazzetta of St. Mark's.--
The people in crowds gathered round the grated gates
of the Ducal Palace, which are shut._

_First Citizen_. I have gained the Gate, and can discern the Ten,
Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Doge.

_Second Cit_. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost effort.
How is it? let us hear at least, since sight
Is thus prohibited unto the people,
Except the occupiers of those bars.

_First Cit_. One has approached the Doge, and now they strip
The ducal bonnet from his head--and now
He raises his keen eyes to Heaven; I see
Them glitter, and his lips move--Hush! hush!--no, 10
'Twas but a murmur--Curse upon the distance!
His words are inarticulate, but the voice
Swells up like muttered thunder; would we could
But gather a sole sentence!

_Second Cit_. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound.

_First Cit_. 'Tis vain.
I cannot hear him.--How his hoary hair
Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave!
Now--now--he kneels--and now they form a circle
Round him, and all is hidden--but I see
The lifted sword in air----Ah! hark! it falls! 20

[_The people murmur._

_Third Cit_. Then they have murdered him who would have freed us.

_Fourth Cit_. He was a kind man to the commons ever.

_Fifth Cit_. Wisely they did to keep their portals barred.
Would we had known the work they were preparing
Ere we were summoned here--we would have brought
Weapons, and forced them!

_Sixth Cit_. Are you sure he's dead?

_First Cit_. I saw the sword fall--Lo! what have we here?

_Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts St. Mark's
Place a_ CHIEF OF THE TEN,[480] _with a bloody sword.
He waves it thrice before the People, and exclaims,_

"Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor!"

[_The gates are opened; the populace rush in towards the
The foremost of them exclaims to those behind,_

"The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps!"[fy][481]
[_The curtain falls_.[482]

FOOTNOTES:

[359] {331}[Marin Faliero was not in command of the land forces at the
siege of Zara in 1346. According to contemporary documents, he held a
naval command under Civran, who was in charge of the fleet. Byron was
misled by an error in Morelli's Italian version of the _Chronica
iadratina seu historia obsidionis Jaderae_, p. xi. (See _Marino faliero
avanti il Dogado_, by Vittorio Lazzarino, published in _Nuovo Archivio
Veneto_, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. p. 132, note 4.)]

[360] [For the siege of Alesia (Alise in Cote d'Or), which resulted in
the defeat of the Gauls and the surrender of Vercingetorix, see _De
Bella Gallico_, vii. 68-90. Belgrade fell to Prince Eugene, August 18,
1717.]

[361] {332}[If this event ever took place, it must have been in 1346,
when the future Doge was between sixty and seventy years of age. The
story appears for the first time in the chronicle of Bartolomeo Zuccato,
notajo e cancelliere of the Comune di Treviso, which belongs to the
first half of the sixteenth century. The Venetian chroniclers who were
Faliero's contemporaries, and Anonimo Torriano, a Trevisan, who wrote
before Zuccato, are silent. See _Marino Faliero, La Congiura_, by
Vittorio Lazzarino.--_Nuovo Archivio Veneto_, 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. p.
29.]

[362] ["Square talked in a very different strain.... In pronouncing
these [sentences from the _Tusculan Questions, etc_.] he was one day so
eager that he unfortunately bit his tongue ... this accident gave
Thwackum, who was present, and who held all such doctrines to be
heathenish and atheistical, an opportunity to clap a judgment on his
back."--_The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, Bk. V. chap. ii. 1768,
i. 234. See, too, Letter to Murray, November 23, 1822, _Letters_, 1901,
vi. 142; _Life_, p. 570.]

[363] [[_Principj di storia civile della Repubblica di Venezia_. Scritti
da Vettor Sandi, 1755, Part II. tom. i. pp. 127, 128.]

[364] [_Storia della Republica Veneziana_. Scritta da Andrea Navagiero,
_apud_ Muratori, _Italic. Rerum, Scriptores_, 1733, xxiii. p. 924,
_sq_.]

[365] [_Istoria dell' assedio e della Ricupera di Zara, Fatta da'
Veneziani nell' anno_ 1346. Scritta da auctore contemporaneo, pp.
i.-xxxviii.]

[366] {333}[Michele Steno was not, as Sanudo and others state, one of
the Capi of the Quarantia in 1355, but twenty years later, in 1375. When
Faliero was elected to the Dogeship, Steno was a youth of twenty, and a
man under thirty years of age was not eligible for the Quarantia.--_La
Congiura,_ etc., p. 64.]

[367] [History does not bear out the tradition of her youth. Aluica
Gradenigo was born in the first decade of the fourteenth century, and
became Dogaressa when she was more than forty-five years of age.--_La
Congiura,_ p. 69.]

[368] [See _A View of the Society and Manners in Italy,_ by John Moore,
M.D., 1781, i. 144-152. The "stale jest" is thus worded: "This lady
imagined she had been affronted by a young Venetian nobleman at a public
ball, and she complained bitterly ... to her husband. The old Doge, who
had all the desire imaginable to please his wife, determined, in this
matter, at least, to give her ample satisfaction."]

[369] {334}[For Frederick's verse, "Evitez de Bernis la sterile
abondance," see _La Bibliographie Universelle_, art. "Bernis"; and for
his jest, "Je ne la connais pas," see _History of Frederick the Great_,
by Thomas Carlyle, 1898, vi. 14.]

[370] [For the story of the abduction of Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan
O'Ruarc, by Dermot Mac-Murchad, King of Leinster, in 1153, see Moore's
_History of Ireland_, 1837, ii. 200.]

[371] {335}[_Istoria della Repubblica di Venezia_, del Sig. Abate
Laugier, Tradotta del Francese. Venice, 1778, iv. 30.]

[372] {336}[The marble staircase on which Faliero took the ducal oath,
and on which he was afterwards beheaded, led into the courtyard of the
palace. It was erected by a decree of the Senate in 1340, and was pulled
down to make room for Rizzo's facade, which was erected in 1484. The
"Scala dei Giganti" (built by Antonio Rizzo, circ. 1483) does not occupy
the site of the older staircase.]

[373] [On the north side of the Campo, in front of the Church of Santi
Giovanni e Paolo (better known as San Zanipolo), stands the Scuola di
San Marco. Attached to the lower hall of the Scuola is the Chapel of
Santa Maria della Pace, in which the sarcophagus containing the bones of
Marino Faliero was discovered in 1815.]

[374] [In the Campo in front of the church is the equestrian statue of
Bartolomeo Colleoni, designed by Andrea Veroccio, and cast in 1496 by
Alessandro Leopardi.--_Handbook: Northern Italy_, p. 374.]

[375] {337}[See _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 317, note 1.]

[376] [See _Letters_, 1898, ii. 79, note 3.]

[ct] _It is like being at the whole process of a woman's toilet--it
disenchants._--[MS. M.]

[cu] _Any man of common independence._--[MS. M. erased.]

[377] {338}While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre, I can
vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for myself, that we did our best to
bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what I could to get _De
Montford_ revived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of
Sotheby's _Ivan_, which was thought an acting play; and I endeavoured
also to wake Mr. Coleridge to write us a tragedy[A]. Those who are not
in the secret will hardly believe that the _School for Scandal_ is the
play which has brought the _least money_, averaging the number of times
it has been acted since its production; so Manager Dibdin assured me. Of
what has occurred since Maturin's _Bertram_ I am not aware[B]; so that I
may be traducing, through ignorance, some excellent new writers; if so,
I beg their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five years,
and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper since my
departure, and am now only aware of theatrical matters through the
medium of the _Parisian Gazette_ of Galignani, and only for the last
twelve months. Let me, then, deprecate all offence to tragic or comic
writers, to whom I wish well, and of whom I know nothing. The long
complaints of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no
fault of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble,
Cooke, and Kean, in their very different manners, or than Elliston in
_Gentleman's_ comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill[C] I
never saw, having made and kept a determination to see nothing which
should divide or disturb my recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble
were the _ideal_ of tragic action; I never saw anything at all
resembling them, even in _person_; for this reason, we shall never see
again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of dignity, we
should remember that it is a grace, not an art, and not to be attained
by study. In all, _not_ super-natural parts, he is perfect; even his
very defects belong, or seem to belong, to the parts themselves, and
appear truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say, with reference to his
acting, what the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, "that
he was the only man he ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of
Plutarch."[D]

[A] [See letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, March 31, 1815, _Letters_,
1899, iii. 190; letter to Moore, October 28, 1815, and note 1 (with
quotation from unpublished letter of Coleridge), and passages from
Byron's _Detached Thoughts_ (1821) ... _ibid_., pp. 230, 233-238.]

[B] [Maturin's _Bertram_ was played for the first time at Drury Lane,
May 9, 1816. (See _Detached Thoughts_ (1821), _Letters_, 1899, iii. 233,
and letter to Murray, October 12, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 171.)]

[C] [Elizabeth O'Neill (1791-1872), afterwards Lady Becher, made her
_debut_ in 1814, and retired from the stage in 1819. Sarah Siddons
(1755-1831) made her final appearance on the stage June 9, 1818, and her
brother John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) appeared for the last time in
_Coriolanus_, June 23, 1817. Of the other actors mentioned in this note,
George Frederick Cooke (1756-1812) had long been dead; Edmund Kean
(1787-1833) had just returned from a successful tour in the United
States; and Robert William Elliston (1774-1831) (_vide ante_, p. 328)
had, not long before (1819), become lessee of Drury Lane Theatre.]

[D]["Le comte de Montross, Ecossais et chef de la maison de Graham, le
seul homme du monde qui m'ait jamais rappele l'idee de certains heros
que l'on ne voit plus que dans les vies de Plutarque, avail soutenu le
parti du roi d'Angleterre dans son pays, avec une grandeur d'ame qui
rien avait point de pareille en ce siecle."--_Memoires du Cardinal de
Retz_, 1820, ii. 88.]

[378] {339}[This appreciation of the _Mysterious Mother_, which he seems
to have read in Lord Dover's preface to Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace
Mann, provoked Coleridge to an angry remonstrance. "I venture to remark,
first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron spoke sincerely; for I
suspect that he made a tacit exception of himself at least.... Thirdly,
that the _Mysterious Mother_ is the most disgusting, vile, detestable
composition that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark of
true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written
it."--_Table Talk_, March 20, 1834. Croker took a very different view,
and maintained "that the good old English blank verse, the force of
character expressed in the wretched mother ... argue a strength of
conception, and vigour of expression capable of great things," etc. Over
and above the reasonable hope and expectation that this provocative
eulogy of Walpole's play would annoy the "Cockneys" and the "Lakers,"
Byron was no doubt influenced in its favour by the audacity of the plot,
which not only put _septentrional_ prejudices at defiance, but was an
instance in point that love ought not "to make a tragic subject unless
it is love furious, criminal, and hopeless" (Letter to Murray, January
4, 1821). He would, too, be deeply and genuinely moved by such verse as
this--

"Consult a holy man! inquire of him!
--Good father, wherefore? what should I inquire?
Must I be taught of him that guilt is woe?
That innocence alone is happiness--
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamped with crime are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal?...
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction;
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the God revealed
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was placed
In some Saint's casual custody."

Act i. sc. 3, _s.f._ _Works of the Earl of Orford_, 1798, i. 55.]

[379] {340}[Byron received a copy of Goethe's review of _Manfred_, which
appeared in _Kunst und Alterthum_ (ii. 2. 191) in May, 1820. In a letter
to Murray, dated October 17, 1820 (_Letters_, 1901, v. 100), he enclosed
a letter to Goethe, headed "For _Marino Faliero_. Dedication to Baron
Goethe, etc., etc., etc." It is possible that Murray did not take the
"Dedication" seriously, but regarded it as a _jeu d'esprit_, designed
for the amusement of himself and his "synod." At any rate, the
"Dedication" did not reach Goethe's hand till 1831, when it was
presented to him at Weimar by John Murray the Third. "It is written,"
says Moore, who printed a mutilated version in his _Letters and
Journals, etc._, 1830, ii. 356-358, "in the poet's most whimsical and
mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two
favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule, compels me to deprive the
reader of its most amusing passages." The present text, which follows
the MS., is reprinted from _Letters_, 1901, v. 100-104--

"Dedication to Baron Goethe, etc., etc., etc.

"Sir--In the Appendix to an English work lately translated into
German and published at Leipsic, a judgment of yours upon English
poetry is quoted as follows: 'That in English poetry, great genius,
universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient
tenderness and force, are to be found; but that _altogether these
do not constitute poets_,' etc., etc.

"I regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. This
opinion of yours only proves that the '_Dictionary of Ten Thousand
living English Authors_'[A] has not been translated into German.
You will have read, in your friend Schlegel's version, the dialogue
in _Macbeth_--

"'There are _ten thousand!_
_Macbeth_. _Geese_, villain?
_Answer_. _Authors_, sir.'[B]

Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen
hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this moment, whatever
their works may be, as their booksellers well know: and amongst
these there are several who possess a far greater reputation than
mine, though considerably less than yours. It is owing to this
neglect on the part of your German translators that you are not
aware of the works of William Wordsworth, who has a baronet in
London[C] who draws him frontispieces and leads him about to
dinners and to the play; and a Lord in the country,[D] who gave him
a place in the Excise--and a cover at his table. You do not know
perhaps that this Gentleman is the greatest of all poets
past--present and to come--besides which he has written an '_Opus
Magnum_' in prose--during the late election for Westmoreland.[E]
His principal publication is entitled '_Peter Bell_' which he had
withheld from the public for '_one and twenty years_'--to the
irreparable loss of all those who died in the interim, and will
have no opportunity of reading it before the resurrection. There is
also another named Southey, who is more than a poet, being actually
poet Laureate,--a post which corresponds with what we call in Italy
Poeta Cesareo, and which you call in German--I know not what; but
as you have a '_Caesar_'--probably you have a name for it. In
England there is no _Caesar_--only the Poet.

"I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. They form
but two bricks of our Babel, (Windsor bricks, by the way) but may
serve for a specimen of the building.

"It is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the
whole body of the present English poetry is a _disgust_ and
_contempt_ for life.' But I rather suspect that by one single work
of _prose_, _you_ yourself have excited a greater contempt for life
than all the English volumes of poesy that ever were written.
Madame de Staeel says, that 'Werther has occasioned more suicides
than the most beautiful woman;' and I really believe that he has
put more individuals out of this world than Napoleon
himself,--except in the way of his profession. Perhaps, Illustrious
Sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern
journal[F] upon you in particular, and the Germans in general, has
rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism.
But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured
fellows, considering their two professions,--taking up the law in
court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their
hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do; and I so
expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, in 1816, at Coppet.

"In behalf of my 'ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, I
have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to
'English poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it
was yours.

"My principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere
respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led
the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as
the first literary Character of his Age.

"You have been fortunate, Sir, not only in the writings which have
illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being
sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In this you
have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would
perhaps be immortal also--if anybody could pronounce them.

"It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity,
that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will
be a mistake: I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, as I
really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most
other nations, to be by far the first literary Character which has
existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel,
desirous to inscribe to you the following work,--_not_ as being
either a tragedy or a _poem_, (for I cannot pronounce upon its
pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,)
but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man
who has been hailed in Germany 'the great Goethe.'

"I have the honour to be,

With the truest respect,

Your most obedient and

Very humble servant,

Byron,

"Ravenna, 8^bre^ 14º, 1820.

"P.S.--I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a
great struggle about what they call '_Classical_' and
'_Romantic_,'--terms which were not subjects of classification in
England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some of
the English Scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the
reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either
prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of.
Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I
have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I
shall be very sorry to believe it."

Another Dedication, to be prefixed to a Second Edition of the play was
found amongst Byron's papers. It remained in MS. till 1832, when it was
included in a prefatory note to _Marino Faliero, Works of Lord Byron_,
1832, xii. 50.

"Dedication of _Marino Faliero_.

"To the Honourable Douglas Kinnaird.

"My dear Douglas,--I dedicate to you the following tragedy, rather
on account of your good opinion of it, than from any notion of my
own that it may be worthy of your acceptance. But if its merits
were ten times greater than they possibly can be, this offering
would still be a very inadequate acknowledgment of the active and
steady friendship with which, for a series of years, you have
honoured your obliged and affectionate friend,

"BYRON.
"Ravenna, Sept. 1st, 1821."

[A][_A Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors of Great Britain and
Ireland, etc_., London, 1816, 8vo.]

[B] [_Macbeth_. Where got'st thou that goose look?
_Servant_. There is ten thousand--
_Macbeth_. Geese, villain?
_Servant_. Soldiers, sir."
_Macbeth_, act v. sc. 3, lines 12, 13.]

[C][Sir George Beaumont. See Professor W. Knight, _Life of Wordsworth_,
ii. (_Works_, vol. x.) 56.]

[D][Lord Lonsdale (_ibid_., p. 209).]

[E][_Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland_, 1818.]

[F][See an article on Goethe's _Aus Meinem Leben_, etc., in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for June, 1816, vol. xxvi. pp. 304-337.] ]

[cv] {345} _Are none yet of the Messengers returned_?--[MS. M.]

[380] [The _Consiglio Minore_, which originally consisted of the Doge
and his six councillors, was afterwards increased, by the addition of
the three _Capi_ of the _Quarantia Criminale_, and was known as the
_Serenissima Signoria_ (G. Cappelletti, _Storia della Repubblica di
Venezia_, 1850, i. 483). The Forty who were "debating on Steno's
accusation" could not be described as the "_Signory_."]

[cw] _With seeming patience_.--[MS. M.]

[cx] _He sits as deep_--[MS. M.]

[cy] {346}_Or aught that imitates_--.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[cz] _Young, gallant_--.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[381] [Bertuccio Faliero was a distant connection of the Doge, not his
nephew. Matters of business and family affairs seem to have brought them
together, and it is evident that they were on intimate terms.--_La
Congiura_, p. 84.]

[382] [The Avogadori, three in number, were the conductors of criminal
prosecutions on the part of the State; and no act of the councils was
valid, unless sanctioned by the presence of one of them; but they were
not, as Byron seems to imply, a court of first instance. The implied
reproach that they preferred to send the case to appeal because Steno
was a member of the "Quarantia," is based on an error of Sanudo's (_vide
ante_, p. 333).]

[da] {348} ----_Marin! Falierae_ [sic].--[MS. M.]

[383] ["Marin Faliero, dalla bella moglie--altri la gode, ed egli la
mantien."--Marino Samuto, _Vitae Ducum Venetorum, apud_ Muratori, _Rerum
Italicurum Scriptores_, 1733, xxii. 628-638]. Navagero, in his _Storia
della Repubblica Veneriana_, _ibid_., xxiii. 1040, gives a coarser
rendering of Steno's Lampoon.--"Becco Marino Fallier dalla belta
mogier;" and there are older versions agreeing in the main with that
Faliero's by Sanudo. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether Faliro's
conspiracy was, in any sense, the outcome of a personal insult. The
story of the Lampoon first appears in the Chronicle of Lorenzo de
Monaci, who wrote in the latter half of the fifteenth century. "Fama
fuit ... quia aliqui adolescentuli nobiles scripserunt in angulis
interioris palatii aliqua verba ignominiosa, et quod ipse (il Doge)
magis incanduit quoniam adolescentuli illi parva fuerant animadversione
puniti." In course of time the "noble youths" became a single noble
youth, whose name occurred in the annals, and the derivation or
evolution of the "verba ignominiosa," followed by a natural
process.--_La Congiura, Nuona Archivio Veneto_, 1897, tom. xiii. pt. ii.
p. 347.]

[384] {349}[Sanudo gives two versions of Steno's punishment: (1) that he
should be imprisoned for two months, and banished from Venice for a
year; (2) that he should be imprisoned for one month, flogged with a
fox's tail, and pay one hundred lire to the Republic.]

[385] {350}[_Vide ante_, p. 331.]

[386] {351}[Faliero's appeal to the "law" is a violation of "historical
accuracy." The penalty for an injury to the Doge was not fixed by law,
but was decided from time to time by the Judge, in accordance with
unwritten custom.--_La Congiura_, p. 60.]